Monday, April 3, 2000, 09:04 p.m. Pacific

Seattle to test computer system for joint utility bills

by Jeff Hodson Seattle Times staff reporter The city of Seattle today will begin testing a new computer system designed to make billing easier for its utility customers.

Instead of two bills, City Light and Seattle Public Utilities customers will ultimately get one. Garbage, water, electric and sewer charges will arrive in a single statement, and electronic billing and payment by e-mail will be possible.

But all this comes at an unexpectedly high cost. Bogged down with delays, the combined computer system faces overruns that could reach $10 million, a cost that would ultimately be borne by customers.

Cost increases for the project, known as the Consolidated Customer Services System, could range from $2 million to $10 million, or as much as 38 percent more than the original budget of $26.4 million, according to City Light spokesman Bob Royer.

Concerned about the escalating costs, City Council members and the Mayor's Office are looking at ways to better handle future technological projects.

"We're trying to learn from our mistakes," said Ray Hoffman, an assistant to Mayor Paul Schell who handles utility and environmental issues.

For instance, he said, a better "early-warning system" will be put in place that calls for biweekly project updates.

Originally scheduled to be up and running in February, the system was delayed until May. Now it won't be ready until November.

If testing reveals few bugs, it could be up before then. But officials from the utilities want the system to be perfect before they start sending out 450,000 bills.

Varying rates for garbage and electricity made it difficult to program the new system. "We have all these complexities built into our system," Royer said. "It's not just `X' cents per kilowatt hour."

In addition, the original plan assumed that testing could have been done while the system was being installed. That proved impossible. A new plan called for testing after the system was completed.

Contributing to the delay, Royer said, was the fact that utility staffers were working on two "very large orders" at the same time late last year: Y2K computer compliance and a three-year rate increase that went into effect in December.

Despite the delays and cost increases, the city found its project is in line with similar upgrades undertaken by publicly owned utilities.

TMG Consulting, a Texas-based firm hired by the city, noted that most new computer systems are installed over two to three years. Seattle's new November target date keeps it well within that range at two years and two months.

Royer conceded that City Light officials were too ambitious at the outset, thinking they could get the whole system up in 14 months.

The consultant found that Seattle's system was on the high end in terms of cost but still within an acceptable range. The company surveyed 20 of the largest publicly owned utilities in the nation and found that the average cost for a new computer system the size of Seattle's should range from $22.5 million to $36 million.

The consultant, Greg Galluzzi, noted that in Austin, Texas, the city utility delayed its starting date for a new $7 million computer system six times. But it ended up with "one of the smoothest and successful go-live events" Galluzzi had seen.

Much of the cost for a new system is for consultants and contractors. And that adds up when the project takes longer.

Seattle customers won't see an increase in utility bills to pay for the overrun, Royer said. Instead, the money will come from the capital-projects fund, which also comes from utility revenue. Other capital improvements will be rescheduled.

The cost will be spread over 10 or 15 years, he said, and is easily "absorbable" by a $360 million-a-year operation.

http://www.seattletimes.com/news/local/html98/bill03m_20000403.html

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-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), April 03, 2000